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2011-09-12 - Power Lunch
After telling Janet about having met with Karen Starr of Starrware Industries while they were apart at Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Women Summit, Susan had more help in arranging their schedules than she'd had previously. Within but a few days she and Janet are able to arrange a day to take a late lunch, and Ms. Starr's assistant has said that her boss should be able to make the appointed meeting. Per their conversation, reservations have been made at a particular sushi restaurant Karen mentioned. Susan and Janet arrive in plenty of time, having rather naturally traveled together from the office, chatting the whole way as is their want. "I'm glad you were able to speak with Aurora." the blonde mentions, as they are shown to their table to await their third. "The lawyer left a message earlier today, saying that the contracts are ready for your review. Hopeully this will be the start of a very good marketing arm for Butterfly Wings. Did you get a chance to review the prospectus for the high yield crop project?" "I did." Janet replies. She's dressed for work. Which means she's dressed fabulous! And maybe a little scandelous! She's got on a tight white labcoat that's about two sizes too small, a black leather mini-skirt and the cutest little crop top. She also has on a pair of half glasses because she's so smart! "It all looks good to me. We're going to get a lot of pissing and moaning from agribusiness, though. They don't like that we're not sterilizing the seeds. They like bilking farmers out of money every year." Jan considers the menu. Karen Starr is already at the restaurant and sees Susan and Janet walk up. She's wearing a casual outfit. T-shirt and jeans and a light green jacket. "Susan, great! And I'm guessing this is Janet?" she asks, walking up to the two women outside. "Cmon in. I recommend the temaki. But if you havent had sushi before, you might want to start wit h something like a california roll or some amaebi. Maybe nigiri - they cook that sometimes. "Good afternoon, Karen. Good to see you. And yes, this is my partner, Janet van Dyne. Janet, this is Karen Starr." See, now the introductions are made. The smaller of the two blondes looks to her lovely brunette partner and shrugs a bit. "I'll let you two choose the menu for today. I trust you." She puts tremendous faith in Janet. She also knows Jan is the far more adventurous of the two, and not just about the menu. "How was the rest of the conference for you, Karen? It went well, I hope?" "We'll be sharing the sampling plate, actually. That way Susan and I can both nibble on what we like." Jan says with a smile. "And a bottle of sake. To make what we like even more delicious. Hello, Karen, nice to meet you. Sue thinks your company might be the solution to the programming problems we've been having." Karen Starr shakes Janet's hand, then takes off her shoes and heads into the restaurant. "Sake to me then." She heads to a table and sits down. "You'll love this - they make the plates right at the table. And the conference did go pretty well. Got hit on only once, so that's a personal record." She looks over at the server, asking for some a maki sushi plate - One order of tukomaki and a couple of orders of tekkamaki - as well as some sake. She then looks back at the pair, letting Janet order next before she says "Oh really? What sort of programming problems?" Susan slips off her shoes and follows suit, since that seems the polite thing for this establishment, though it's not her norm. She looks a good bit dressier than either of the other two at the moment. "The conference went very well for us, too. Quite a few useful contacts with future possibilities for strategic alliances." She doesn't mention how often she got hit on. It's not something she keeps count of, much sometimes to Jan's frustration. "There are two very important tasks we must overcome, computationally, to make this project a success. The first is better advanced computer modeling. Given the potential enormities of the project, and the number of possible variables, variances and consequences, we need better modeling than we have if we're to assure what we build won't end up becoming part of the problem, rather than part of the solution." Susan offers. "The load is computationally unsound on the existing systems." Janet slips off her shoes as well. She follows in and orders a large sampler platter. Something for her and Sue to share. "What she said." Jan nods in agreement. "Also, we'll need better security. We're competing with Kord, Stark, Wayne, LexCorp, Stane... the list goes on and on. Some of those companies are ethical. Some aren't. We need to be sure our data is safe AND available via remote access." Karen Starr smiles. "Well Starrware has been working on something called KROM chips. Basically media storage placed on individual protein cells. Think of it like this... one cell can store about 2 gigabytes of information, so if you put those cells in something accessable like a crystal. Massive storage capabilities in a small space." She smiles. "We basically thought it up as a way to end the landfills of old hard drives and DVDs and Blu Rays, but it's going to probably be the next revolution in computers. Imagine a crystal around the size of, say, this piece of gyozo" She holds up one of the appetizers already on the table with a pair of chopsticks. "And it holds 2.2 petabytes of information. That's how much Google has in its entire database. Of cours, with that much data capability, you can put on a whole lot of security as well" She refrains from mentioning the true origin of the KROM technology is based on Kryptonian data crystals. "Well, that would provide us with effectively unlimited data storage. But what about data /processing/ and modeling algorithms? That is the challenge we need to face. Right now, storage has not been an issue." Which isn't to say it couldn't become so, but it hasn't been yet. Susan settles beside Janet and picks up one of the small porcelain cups of warm sake, then sips at it slowly until she has finished it. Then she'll start on a few pieces from the sampler tray when it arrives. "Don't get me wrong, the potential for data storage is amazing. But it isn't the challenge we face." Janet's a little different. She picks up her cup and sips about half, then the other half. Then, she refills it. "Storage isn't a problem. That's relatively cheap. I like the idea of your crystals but right now our big problem is, like Sue said, the calculations. Her new project, for example, runs predictive algorhythms several centuries long for the entire planet's population. We're burning our CPUs out." Karen Starr shakes her head, smiling. "You don't understand. It's not just about data storage. It's speed also. Right now the average computer operates at approximately - what - a 8 nanoseconds on memory retrieval? so around 8 billionths of a second. The protein cell is much, much smaller than a silicon-based CPU. My scientists have actually calculated that we're talking access points for calculations as fast as 9 zeptoseconds. That's 9 sextillionths of a second. We're working on quark-level miniaturization, but that's not economically feasible yet - those might go down to the yoctosecond range." She leans over. "So think of it like this. A crystal which is both storage and computational ability, about one billion times faster than current home and business computers, with enough storage capability to place as much security protocols on as possible. Forget about 128-bit encryption - my programmers have been able to put algorithms in which bring up to 16,384-bit encryption. Even if you bothered to still use something like encryption in the first place. "But is any of this honestly economically feasible with modern manuacturing techniques?" Susan queries. Engineering like this is more than a bit beyond her, but she understands enough of the challenges they have faced, just with something like Butterfly Wings, to know that it should also apply to something this much of a - pardon the pun - quantum leap ahead in computing power. "We don't mean to besmirch your abilities." Jan says, quite honestly. She takes a moment to nibble on an appetizer before she goes on. "But if Tony Stark and Lex Luthor haven't got that sort of capability in our mainframes, can you deliver it for a reasonable price?" Karen Starr smiles, taking a roll from the recently arrived food, "We've actually used a dumbed down version of it in the evergreen smartphone. It trades some of the power for cost. 12 gigabytes of information on a smartphone with more computational abilities than most supercomputers from a year ago, and the battery lasts a month between recharges. In short, it's negligible heat generation. Using this sort of technology, your CPUs wouldn't burn out if you were calculating the population of Earth 2 millenia into the future instead of 2 centuries." She pops the roll into her mouth and swallows, smiling at the taste. "Only problem we currently have is making it cost effectively available to the general public but the average server today is prohibitively expensive to most households and businesses anyway. At least at full price. Comparatively - it's a bargain." Unfinished scene